Robert Randall “Randy” Dutton is vice president of a technology company, a retired Navy Commander, Scoutmaster, and father. His wife, Gail, is a freelance writer who covers the intersection of science and business for numerous national science and business magazines. They are raising their twin 15-year old boys in Montesano. All four are strong fiscal conservatives, believing people and government should live within their means.
Randy lived the first 9 years in the high-tech San Fernando Valley of Southern California, where his father was employed as an aerospace engineer. His family relocated to the Saint Louis, Missouri following the aerospace merger of McDonnell Douglas, where his father helped design the DC-10, Apollo-Soyuz connector, and interplanetary rocket engines. At age 12, Randy and his older brother started their first business, a landscaping firm. The early death of his father during his high school years instilled increased responsibility in him.
Working his way through college, he graduated with a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Missouri and he joined the US Navy Supply Corps program. After graduating both Officer Candidate School and the Navy Supply Corps School, he supervised financial, logistical, food, retail, material management, and/or contracting operations onboard two Navy ships, a major communications command in Italy, and the Long Beach Naval Shipyard. While on active duty, Randy was credited with saving a major military communications command from a prior year funding deficit violation, and, in the military shipyard, saving taxpayers more than $70 million through a number of cost cutting initiatives, and concurrently improving operations. Injured while on active duty, Dutton transferred to the Ready Reserve, and focused on regular and expeditionary military contracting assignments, and in performing special cost-reduction studies.
After leaving active duty, Randy joined a leading packaging technology company, FANA Inc, outside Philadelphia, as VP of R&D and Sales, and helped develop products and markets. In 1988 he left to form a project management consulting company called Creative Solutions. In 1990, he relocated back to California to get married, and from 1990 worked as a supervisor for the City of Long Beach, CA, Harbor Department (Port of Long Beach), and for a short period, for the City of Long Beach Police Department as a trainee to head the Crime Analysis Division. In 1996 he rejoined FANA (now called FPM) as its Vice President, which allows him to telecommute from his home office. In this capacity he develops innovative, anti-corrosion packaging products and oversees a global representative network that uses FPM’s US-made products. He has one patent currently used by the government, and has helped write several others. His wife’s and his ability to telecommute allowed them to live and work two years on an island in British Columbia, where circumstances required they homeschool their boys, a financially difficult but very emotionally rewarding experience.
While living on Mayne Island in British Columbia, he funded GI-Wireless, a startup wireless Internet company, and was involved in coaching the island basketball team.
In 2004 they returned to the US and bought 124 acres of partially logged forest land above the Wynooche River in Grays Harbor County. They have logged some, and replanted all of the cleared land, and are now living in their newly-built dream house on the property.
Personal:
Ø Born in 1956, Burbank, CA, and has lived in Italy and Canada and has visited over 30 countries, most for business.
Ø Lives outside Montesano with his wife Gail, and sons Sean (15) and Scott (15), both whom attend Montesano HS, are the drummers in the 9th grade band, and are working on their Eagle Scout Badges.
Education/Degrees:
Ø Bachelors of Science in Business Administration, University of Missouri.
Ø Masters of Science Administration, University of Phoenix.
Ø Officer Candidate School
Ø Naval Supply Corps School
Ø Naval War College (Strategy and Policy).
Ø Naval Post Graduate School (Comptrollership).
Ø Defense Acquisition University, completing the training for the highest Certification in Government Contracting level, Executive Contracting, DAWIA Level III
Ø Top Secret Security Clearance when required
Occupation (Current):
Ø Vice President, FPM Inc. (metro-Detroit).
Community Involvement:
Ø Prior memberships in Sierra Club and Appalachian Mountain Club.
Ø Previously: 2 terms as President, 1 term as Treasure, Parkcrest HOA, Irvine, CA.
Ø Scoutmaster, Troop 15, Montesano (sponsored by VFW Post 2455).
Ø Communications Director, BSA Sasquatch District.
Ø Disabled American Veterans Association (Lifetime membership)
Activities:
Ø Most things outdoors: horseback riding, backpacking, canoeing, sailing, SCUBA diving, shooting, hunting, fishing, white water rafting.
Membership:
Ø ASTM (American Standards Testing Methods).
Ø Intercept Technology Group.
Ø NIPHLE (National Industrial Packaging Handling and Logistics Engineers).
Ø Disabled American Veterans (Lifetime Membership)
Legislative Priorities (see position papers for more information):
Ø Restore open government to Washington State. Citizens have the right to know the consequences of Legislative action.
Ø Enhance high technology infrastructure on the Olympic Peninsula to attract skilled telecommuters, which lead to more and better jobs for residents.
Ø Restore fiscal discipline to Washington with lower taxes and surplus budgets.
Ø Enable Washington and the US to be energy self sufficient through increased alternative and traditional energy production.
Ø Protect Constitutional freedoms (including ensuring eminent domain laws are not abused).
Ø Protect the Washington and US economy, fuel and food supplies, and environment by eliminating the ethanol mandates.
Ø Improve schools by increasing concentration in science, math, and US history, while maximizing each school day.
Ø Better protect the population along Washington’s coastline from a potential tsunami disaster by advocating “reverse flow” arterial highways, “lifeboat” dual use buildings strategically placed and designed to allow tsunami flood waters to flow past.
Ø Putting Common Sense into government regulations and allowing flexibility to be built into decision making and rule implementation.
